Egypt reaching 'tipping point' as protests unabated

By Jim Michaels and Oren Dorell, USA TODAY

CAIRO  Thousands of Egyptians who for the past week have been leading protests against the authoritarian regime of President Hosni Mubarak appear determined to press ahead with massive demonstrations today that would be the boldest statement yet of the roiling anger and frustration threatening Mubarak's presidency.

By Mohammed Abed, AFP/Getty Images

An Egyptian demonstrator holds up the national flag during Monday's protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo. It is the seventh day of an uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.

An Egyptian demonstrator holds up the national flag during Monday's protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo. It is the seventh day of an uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.

Calling for 1 million people to take to the streets in this city of 18 million, protest organizers on Monday rejected the latest offers of dialogue with the government made by newly installed Vice President Omar Suleiman, who promised unspecified reforms. The protesters — fed up with the poverty, high unemployment, and alleged corruption and sham elections that have marked Mubarak's 29 years of rule — continued to insist that Mubarak, 82, step aside and allow free elections.

In a reflection of the protest campaign's potency, Egypt's influential army — which unlike local police forces is widely respected by opposition leaders — is patrolling the city in tanks and other armored vehicles but has vowed not to fire on peaceful marches.

"The government is depending on the fact that the people will get tired," said Mohammed Bayoumy, coordinator of an opposition political organization called the Dignity Party. "I am sure the people won't get tired."

Because the army is saying it will protect Mubarak and he is refusing to step aside, the crisis does not appear to be near an end, according to analysts, who say the protesters' passion — and today's planned rallies in particular — could bring Egypt to a point between violent upheaval or transition to a new, democratic era that would send ripples through the Middle East and beyond.

Much rests with whether the military decides to stick with Mubarak and whether the international community, including the United States, will back the Egyptian president or try to ease him from power, analysts say.

"To my mind we are hitting a tipping point," says Amr Hamzawy, research director at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut who is in Cairo. "The democracy movement is gaining momentum. It's increasing."

Egypt has been an ally of the United States and a major influence in the Middle East for decades. Its 1979 peace treaty with Israel ended attempts by Arab regimes to topple the Jewish state by force. Egypt's military helps the USA protect the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. Egypt's Muslim population of 82 million is by far the largest in the Arab world, and it controls the Suez Canal, a crucial transport route.

The upheaval in Egypt has put the United States in a delicate diplomatic situation: pressing for a more democratic Egypt, but wary that too much change could threaten the stability that Egypt helps bring to the Middle East.

From the U.S. perspective, "the worst-case scenario is you would have an unstable country, and Egypt is too large for the United States to ignore," Hamzawy says.

In Cairo on Monday, Bayoumy and thousands of others were calling on Egyptians to join their protests today, a public-relations effort hampered by the government's near shutdown of the Internet and spotty phone service. Bayoumy was in Cairo's Tahrir Square, which means "Liberation Square," so named to commemorate the 1952 Egyptian revolution against the British-backed monarchy.

The tanks of the Egyptian army, which installed Mubarak in 1981 after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, had their gun turrets pointed away from the demonstrators.

Military spokesman Ismail Etman said the army realizes "the legitimacy of the people's demands." He said the military "has not and will not use force against the public" and emphasized that "the freedom of peaceful expression is guaranteed for everyone."

He added, however, that protesters should not commit "any act that destabilizes security of the country" or damage property.

'Anybody is better' than Mubarak

The events in Cairo are being watched on television sets across the Middle East and in Western capitals, where governments called for calm.

Suleiman, a longtime Mubarak confidant, did not say what changes the government was offering Egyptians. Opposition forces in Egypt, where elections are open mostly only to Mubarak's party, have wanted a lifting of strict restrictions on who is eligible to run for president. Mubarak has not said whether he will run in elections scheduled for September.

In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the situation in Egypt calls for change but did not say Mubarak should step down. The State Department said former ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner was in Cairo to urge Mubarak to make changes that would allow for free and fair elections.

In Cairo, some protesters said they were angry that President Obama's administration has not called for Mubarak to quit.

Mubarak's regime has never allowed an effective opposition to develop, said Essam Abdul Qader, 64, an accountant who joined protesters in Tahrir Square.

"Mubarak just took power himself," he said.

Some factions rallied around Mohamed ElBaradei, the former United Nations weapons inspector who returned to Egypt after the protests started. But many Egyptians who protested in the streets Monday said they were skeptical of him, saying he has lived outside Egypt for years and has lost touch with the country.

"He just came back to ride the wave of the people," Qader said.

Few other names have surfaced as a possible replacement for Mubarak.

"So many people are capable," said Salah Abu Zaid, an administrator at the Cairo rail station, but no names came to mind immediately.

"Once there are fair and honest elections, people will be able to select the right man," Zaid said. "Anybody is better than Hosni Mubarak."

One of the best organized alternatives to Mubarak is the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that seeks an Islamic theocracy in Egypt and worldwide. Some Egyptians say they are supportive of the group and that Mubarak exaggerated its threats to win support from the West.

The Muslim Brotherhood mentored Osama bin Laden and from it emerged Hamas, the U.S.-designated Islamic terror group that controls Gaza and seeks the destruction of Israel.

"The Muslim Brotherhood are good people," Zaid said. "I don't know why the government is on their case."

"If they impose sharia, why not?" Qader said, referring to strict Islamic law under which women are treated as lesser citizens and freedom of religion is prohibited.

Protesters said they are impatient with the U.S. position on Mubarak, criticizing the Obama administration for not taking a harder stance against his regime. "We have heard since Iraq (that) the United States is interested in democracy in the Arab world," said Koweida Helmy, 43.

"This is the real place for democracy," she said, pointing at fellow protesters in Tahrir Square.

Democratic elections in Egypt could pose risks to the U.S. working relationship with Egypt, which includes decades of close military cooperation, says David Schenker, a Middle East adviser in the Defense Department under President George W. Bush.

"We don't know who comes next," Schenker says, noting that Egyptians could choose leaders from among the Muslim Brotherhood or a combination of liberal forces in the opposition.

Even ElBaradei is a risk, Schenker says. In 2009, ElBaradei was accused by France of going easy on Iran and allowing it time to perfect systems to make a nuclear weapon. ElBaradei has said he would allow more construction materials to be allowed into Gaza, which the U.S. and Israel have said could be used by the Islamic group Hamas to build fortifications and prompt war.

Itzik Segev, who witnessed the Iranian Islamic Revolution as the last Israeli military attaché in Iran and who was the Israeli military governor of Gaza from 1979 to 1982, says a free election in Egypt will mean victory to the Muslim Brotherhood. An Islamic revolution in the most populous Arab country will not stop there, he says.

"All of the Middle East will fall," Segev says. "No country will be able to survive it."

Protestors in Egypt today are unified against Mubarak much as protestors in Iran were unified against the Shah in 1978, when liberals and religious factions worked together, Segev says.

In Iran, "each side thought it would prevail, but the Islamists were much more organized, and in a short time they killed all the rest of the opposition," he says. "The same thing can happen in Egypt."

'The pressure ... will increase'

Other analysts say free elections are the only path to stability.

"The United States has to be unequivocal at this point that it stands with the Egyptian people," says Dina Guirguis, research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "I don't think the protests are going to abate anytime soon short of Mubarak leaving."

Hamzawy agreed. He said the United States, which has a longtime connection to the Egyptian military and provides the country with $1.5 billion in aid annually, has the ability to ease Mubarak out.

That, and assurances for constitutional safeguards, would be enough to persuade protestors to go home, he said.

Monday, looting continued and many Egyptians were patrolling their neighborhoods to protect their property. In Cairo, soldiers detained about 50 men trying to break into the Egyptian National Museum, home to many of the country's archaeological treasures, the military said.

Trains were not running. A curfew imposed for a fourth day was widely ignored. Banks, schools and the stock market in Cairo were closed for the second working day, making cash tight. Long lines of people wanting bread formed outside bakeries.

Cairo's international airport was a scene of chaos as thousands of foreigners wanted out and countries around the world scrambled to send in planes to fly their citizens out.

Mubarak appeared fatigued as he was shown on state TV, swearing in the members of a Cabinet he reorganized in response to the protests.

Elsewhere, police set up checkpoints. Protesters say they will continue to put pressure on the regime.

"The pressure and momentum is still there, and it will increase," Qader said. Bayoumy agreed.

"The people have come out," he said, "and they will not go back until their objectives have been met."

Contributing: The Associated Press

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